Chokster37 wrote:Or at the very least, no one is smarter than I am. It's logically impossible, considering what I know.

Try and prove me wrong.

Prove you wrong!? I've heard that the smartest man who ever lived was Erasmus. They say that he was a scribe, monk, or philosopher who read the most books in The Library of Alexandria. About 15 years ago, I read an article that columnist Marilyn Vos Savant has the highest IQ. I don't know who is the smartest now. Sorry, Chris.

If you are truly the smartest person in the world, then maybe Dustin Hoffman will play you in your biography movie. I was working on writing some palindrome phrases and crossword clues when I was told by a joking man that Dustin Hoffman will play me in my bio pic.

By the ways, I like Chokage and All This And Wolf3D! Thanks. I understand you worked on both. You must have spent a lot of time coding for All This And Wolf3D!

Edit: Our art teacher explained to us that the smartest man who ever lived could have been Leonardo Da Vinci. This was about 12 years before the Da Vinci Code was written.

Chokster37 wrote:There is one main question you have to ask first - "What is the meaning of your life?"

I think that this question is misleading in making the assumption that there’s only one meaning to life. There are many meanings of life.

If you’re talking about the meaning of life, Ayn Rand wrote something that I don’t remember word for word. She said that she finds man as a heroic being with his own happiness as his objective. I understand that she wrote something to the effect of that it’s more important to live a dignified and worthwhile life than to worry about if Yahweh, Jehovah, or Allah will let you into Heaven. I understand that she was born a Jew in Russia named Rosenbaum and that she changed her name to the Aryan-sounding Ayn Rand so that she could flee from Stalin.

I was watching “Joseph Campbell’s Power of The Myth.” American commentator Bill Moyers was talking with him too. Joseph Campbell said that we’re alive for the experience of life instead of for the meaning of life.

I’ve heard that in southeast Asian cultures that they don’t ask questions like “What is the meaning of life?” I’ve heard that southeast Asian cultures also don’t debate the philosophy of good vs. evil.

Chokster37 wrote:If you cannot answer this question without using some kind of biased belief system, then the importance of anything else you say or care about is just based on preferential opinions, and therefore cannot be a valid way to measure how smart someone is.

Biased belief system? My Psychology Professor wasn’t Mexican. He’s white. He gave a very interesting presentation about how America’s standardized testing is biased. It’s biased especially to those who only speak Spanish and are familiar with Hispanic culture more than white American culture. I suppose that you’re going to say that all IQ tests are biased because they’ve gathered information only in the language that was it was written in and ask questions mainly about the culture that it came from.

For instance, if somebody speaks in English about Philosophers like Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, then is it a biased conversation by not speaking in Chinese about Chinese Philosophers with Chinese cultural terms?

The ultimate question is, “How will you make a living as a Philosophy Major?”

I know you’re only 15, but we meant the movie, “Rainman” with Dustin Hoffman. Rainman is based partly off of Kim Peek, who has Autism, and I would say is one of the smartest people in the world. You should rent Rainman sometime, it’s a good movie. Tom Cruise is into Scientology, so if you’re a non-Scientologist I guess that you don’t have to be Rainman to be smarter than Cruise!

I had forgotten to mention some things. I don’t remember if Erasmus was Jewish, Christian, Greek Pagan, or Egyptian Pagan. I thought I read that he was tortured to death. Heron of Alexandria invented a steam machine in about 29 AD that spun around. He also invented some automatons and other things.

After typing, “How will you make a living as a Philosophy Major?,” I had forgotten to type another question. I’ve heard that existentialist philosopher Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche asked, “Why can’t we all just run around naked?” Ask that in a Philosophy class!

Before I leave this thread, I wanted to tell you to do internet searches for The Antikythera Mechanism because it's genius, it's a lot of fun, and some say that it's the smartest invention in the world.

Go type Autism basketball Athena into a search engine for videos from Youtuibe and other places. It’s about a Basketball player at Greece Athena High School with high-functioning Autism who doesn’t seem to be able to miss a shot! I heard one radio announcer from Indiana say that this is better than any movie!

No, he’s not from my High School, but the Athenians are the mascot of my High School. We have statues of Egyptians and Greeks including Athena in our library.

It’s not the Autism Olympics. Jason McElway is the basketball player from New York. Watch a video or two of him online. He’s Autistic and he’s playing on a team where everybody else is normal.

I watched Oprah yesterday or the day before that. A third or a half of the show was about The Spartan Sparkles Cheerleaders from Iowa. Almost all of them have Autism, Down’s Syndrome, or another disorder.

In Wired, it’s about hiring people with Asperger’s Syndrome who are better in the computer industry.

In People, it’s about the movie “Adam” which I understand is a romance about a student with Asperger’s Syndrome. The movie never came to theaters in my town and we’re going to later see if we can rent it.

Dark_wizzie posted on the Smartness is not Intelligence thread and it reminded me of this other thread with Chris.

On the subject of the smartest person in the world or the smartest people who ever lived, Archimedes is just about the smartest scientist. I've started reading The Archimedes Codex: How a Medieval Prayer Book Is Revealing the True Genius of Antiquity's Greatest Scientist by Reviel Netz and William Noel. In the book there's an explanation of how Archimedes might have been the greatest scientist who ever lived.

The last I had heard, Chris (Chokster) had some personal problems and hadn't logged into The Wolf3D Haven for over 6 months.

@Paratrooper Lirelou wrote:Betcha I know much more about the Indochina War and the Algerian War of Independence !

What country are you in? I'm in America. By "Indochina War," I believe you mean The Vietnam War. My Dad's cousin was an American that died in The Vietnam War. If you're Vietnamese, then you can chat to me about The Vietnam War. Be careful talking to other Americans about The Vietnam War because it did not go well, we have bad memories, and a Cambodian Hitler with the English name Pol Pot took advantage when Americans left and killed 2 million Cambodians.

I know you’re only 15, but we meant the movie, “Rainman” with Dustin Hoffman. Rainman is based partly off of Kim Peek, who has Autism, and I would say is one of the smartest people in the world. You should rent Rainman sometime, it’s a good movie. Tom Cruise is into Scientology, so if you’re a non-Scientologist I guess that you don’t have to be Rainman to be smarter than Cruise!

I had forgotten to mention some things. I don’t remember if Erasmus was Jewish, Christian, Greek Pagan, or Egyptian Pagan. I thought I read that he was tortured to death. Heron of Alexandria invented a steam machine in about 29 AD that spun around. He also invented some automatons and other things.

I remember this thread from years ago about Dustin Hoffman, Rainman, and Autism. The thread was much more interesting before members edited their posts to just say Hello to somebody. Rainman is a good movie. Anyways, I had forgotten to mention that last year after Harvey Weinstein was blacklisted, Dustin Hoffman was one of the men to be accused of sexual harrassment from earlier years. I think that Hoffman is now blacklisted.